4 ms·

i'm sure there will be room for auction-style services, but there's going to be innovation and competition there, and eBay just isn't moving very quickly these

i'm sure there will be room for auction-style services, but there's going to be innovation and competition there, and eBay just isn't moving very quickly these days. the other major trend is that both search and social distribution have substantially eroded eBay's original network effect as a destination for buyers & sellers... now both search (via SEM) and social (via FB & other networks) are also able to acquire & influence buyers. anyway, i probably rag on eBay a little too much since i used to work there (via PayPal), but they have slowed down on the innovation quite a bit. that used to be offset by them buying innovative services, but that has also slowed down in recent years.

lsc 17y ago
I agree they don't seem to be innovating, but heck, neither is craigslist, and I don't see them going anywhere. I think that until someone else would need to come along with something significantly better /and/ have significant advertising dollars to compete with ebay. (either that or ebay would need to screw up it's reputation system and badly.) I don't think that facebook or any of the other social networks will compete in that arena... the social networks may help in advertising, e.g. driving people to a particular purchase, but I go to ebay to /find/ something, and I don't think facebook is a useful model for that sort of thing. Sure, you can buy shit from your friends on facebook; I do that without an online social network, through mailing lists and other informal networks. But I don't think that really competes with ebay in any meaningful way.
- davemc500hats 17y ago
  check out http://payvment.com http://payvment.com & http://yardsellr.com http://yardsellr.com craigslist is not in any great danger, but they also aren't innovating much... and even they too face competition from social platforms eventually if they keep standing still.
  - lsc 17y ago
    as far as I can tell, neither of those allow me to search for 'sv650 shift lever' after I drop my bike. The whole point of ebay is that I can pay 'some guy wants to get rid of it' prices, and still get exactly what I want, even if what I want is kindof weird. I am not sure that a social platform is best for selling things; I don't care what you look like, your sexual orientation, or how much you love your dog. I want to know if you will send me the item after I pay for it, and I want to know if the item will be in the condition you said it was in.

lsc 17y ago

I agree they don't seem to be innovating, but heck, neither is craigslist, and I don't see them going anywhere. I think that until someone else would need to come along with something significantly better /and/ have significant advertising dollars to compete with ebay. (either that or ebay would need to screw up it's reputation system and badly.) I don't think that facebook or any of the other social networks will compete in that arena... the social networks may help in advertising, e.g. driving people to a particular purchase, but I go to ebay to /find/ something, and I don't think facebook is a useful model for that sort of thing. Sure, you can buy shit from your friends on facebook; I do that without an online social network, through mailing lists and other informal networks. But I don't think that really competes with ebay in any meaningful way.

davemc500hats 17y ago
check out http://payvment.com http://payvment.com & http://yardsellr.com http://yardsellr.com craigslist is not in any great danger, but they also aren't innovating much... and even they too face competition from social platforms eventually if they keep standing still.
- lsc 17y ago
  as far as I can tell, neither of those allow me to search for 'sv650 shift lever' after I drop my bike. The whole point of ebay is that I can pay 'some guy wants to get rid of it' prices, and still get exactly what I want, even if what I want is kindof weird. I am not sure that a social platform is best for selling things; I don't care what you look like, your sexual orientation, or how much you love your dog. I want to know if you will send me the item after I pay for it, and I want to know if the item will be in the condition you said it was in.